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Respectful Insolence is a repository for the ramblings of the aforementioned pseudonymous surgeon/scientist concerning medicine and quackery, science and pseudoscience, history and pseudohistory, politics, and anything else that interests him (or pushes his buttons). Orac's motto: "A statement of fact cannot be insolent." (OK, maybe it can be just a little bit insolent.)

GIBSON: No, I think it's bullshit. If it isn't, why are they still around? How come apes aren't people yet? It's a nice theory, but I can't swallow it. There's a big credibility gap. The carbon dating thing that tells you how long something's been around, how accurate is that, really? I've got one of Darwin's books at home and some of that stuff is pretty damn funny. Some of his stuff is true, like that the giraffe has a long neck so it can reach the leaves. But I just don't think you can swallow the whole piece.

The whole "if men came from monkeys and apes then why are there still apes around" is one of the more idiotic anti-evolution arguments. This is the sort of simple-minded "argument" that makes scientists want to pull their hair out. (For one thing, the whole premise of the question is wrong; humans didn't descend from "monkeys and apes," but rather humans and apes descended from a common ancestor.) But more surprising to me was his misogynistic view of women. Here he is responding to a question asking him why he doesn't think women should be priests:

GIBSON: I'll get kicked around for saying it, but men and women are just different. They're not equal. The same way that you and I are not equal.

PLAYBOY: That's true. You have more money.

GIBSON: You might be more intelligent, or you might have a bigger dick. Whatever it is, nobody's equal. And men and women are not equal. I have tremendous respect for women. I love them. I don't know why they want to step down. Women in my family are the center of things. And good things emanate from them. The guys usually mess up.

PLAYBOY: That's quite a generalization.

GIBSON: Women are just different. Their sensibilities are different.

PLAYBOY: Any examples?

GIBSON: I had a female business partner once. Didn't work.

PLAYBOY: Why not?

GIBSON: She was a cunt.

Lovely. And this was 10 years ago, long before the controversy over The Passion of the Christ, his association with a breakaway conservative Catholic sect, and the revelation that his father is a Holocaust denier.

Comments

The theorgy of evolution falls on it's face even after the lies that have been posted and printed in US textbooks for the last 40 years. One glaring example is the moth glued to the tree! Yes, glued and then passed off as an "unnatural" example that leads to mutations (evolutions). If the plants and animals were evolving, then they would all have evolved into Humans!

The more I know about Mel Gibson's views, the less I want to know. On the other hand he seems to be ever so slightly less "out there" than his father, but statements like this reveal that the apple hasn't fallen all that far fromt the tree.

I really, REALLY, REALLY hope people don't take celebrities as seriously as I fear.

I'd prefer it if celebrities would all hide in a hole when they're not filming. Get on stage, pull my heart strings, get off and live life as a normal (though perhaps rich) person when the camera's not rolling.

If they did that, I wouldn't be thinking about their RL nuttiness during their fantasy exploits. It's bad enough when your real life has a hard time suspending my disbelief.

I have no problem with celebs speaking out on issues (while hoping people have their bullshit detectors calibrated and turned on). But I can imagine a Jeff Foxworthy-type comparison; "You might be a right-winger if you wish celebrities would all just shut up, but Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger are perfectly OK with you".

Ya know, I think there's a possibility that ol' Mel may have moved along somewhat in the past ten years. The interview makes him sound like -- well, maybe what he deserves to sound like. But it has been ten years and, among other things, he seems to have piped down about some of his queerer views on the Church, FWIW

Actually, Mel has gone far beyond talk regarding his "queerer" views about the Church since 1995. In fact, he's constructed a church in Malibu based on the very teachings I've addressed before, namely that Vatican II is illegitimate, that every Pope since Vatican II has been illegitimate, and that Vatican II was a plot to undermine the church.

The church Mel has constructed is not in any way affiliated with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which is not surprising, given that in the Roman Catholic Church it is considered heresy to reject Vatican II and the legitimacy of the Pope. Unfortunately, the press usually fails to mention this and usually reports on it as if it were a Catholic Church. This is likely because the bulk of this nation is Protestant and doesn't really understand that individuals or even congregations can't just go constructing churches and expect them to be considered true Catholic Churches without getting the OK from the Archdiocese.

uh OK Mel Gibsons an idiot because he doesn't believe in evolution or that men and women are the same, and he used some bad language. Evolution is a theory, like the idea of the bodily humours, the earth centured universe,etc etc.

Orac is but a humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. That Orac has chosen his pseudonym based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights from an old British SF show whose special effects were renowned for their early 1980's BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction for television ever produced, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.) Orac tries to keep his insolence respectful, but admittedly sometimes fails in the cases of obvious quackery and pseudoscience, attacks on him, very poor critical thinking skills, bigotry, and just general plain stupidity.